FWIW, personally, I don’t believe Reid’s claim; unfortunately, there are tons of Black folks (and other “minorities”) that seem to have no issue whatsoever with hating on other disenfranchised/persecuted groups, despite suffering from persecution themselves.
Questions, though:
I didn’t glean that from archive.org’s response, which appears to put the burden of proof on Reid’s lawyers, and they didn’t really do too much (which also assumes they could—exactly how would archive.org even know a remote site was hacked without access to the older site?).
That says nothing about server-side – over the past 12 months I’ve read of hundreds of server vulnerabilities and exploits across a wide range of systems which had prior to been deemed highly secure. And sure, Internet Archive has investigated itself and found no problems, but that’s not reassuring.
My question was more of a what if – because imagine the implications in a world that is descending into chaos because the common folk are having some epistemological differences with the academic/scientific/technologic “elites”…
(I don’t really know who Joy Reid is, nor do I care because I don’t watch TV news.)
Is there anything in print which elucidates Reid’s views from this time? Because I think this is probably a good position to take at this point.
Because, over the past five or so years, I can see that:
Question is, why? Is there a rogue state which would benefit from throwing doubt on someone known for speaking against one of their agents?
I kind of have to be impressed that you don’t even need an established conspiracy to do any of this. Merely a few prompts here and there and division practically sows itself.
It would be easy to believe that archive.org or the original servers are impervious, but I know from direct experience (as recently as this last weekend) that is not a valid or supportable position to take. And I would like a better authority than archive.org, not because I don’t trust them (I do), but some independent verification would be super nice in a case like this.
Did it happen here? I don’t know. Five years ago I categorically would not have believed Reid. Now I’m actually entertaining the notion that if it could happen, I can almost see how it could happen and how little effort it might take. Not sure I believe her, but it’s odd that she owns some of it and apologized for it, but not the rest of it. Why not all of it? Unless it isn’t all hers?
Also, is there anyone else which this could happen to?
(Also I guess print has another solid point in its favor.)
It seems to me that if some nefarious party had the ability to hack not only a person’s blog but also the internet archive and without leaving a trace then they’d probably target a high-profile politician or something. Who would even benefit from making it falsely appear that Joy Reid says some anti-gay stuff 10 years ago?
…at a bloody university to boot.
HR, anybody call HR?
But seriously, there are little groups that are almost a culture to themselves (and they’re not always what you think). On the plus side, I used to live in a heavily agricultural area, predominantly Republican country, and went to school with a bunch of guys who honest to god wore wranglers and cowboy boots/hats on the daily, and not in some sort of ironic hipster way. Two of them were buddies from high school and had a calf roping dummy in their yard to practice their roping, so you can guess what they’d think about gays… But you’d be wrong. The subject came up one day, and I was told a story of them (with a bunch of other guys) working a hay yard (basically loading trucks with hay bales), and one of their buddies always being kinda withdrawn and depressed. They finally figured out he was gay, and basically the whole group of mini-cowboys had an intervention to get this guy to open up and let him know that they were all ok with it.
I’m sure there are as many of not more horrible stories about rural areas not being accepting, but sometimes you get pleasantly surprised.
There’s also the point that:
So, apparently the “hackers” started their nefarious work about a decade ago. Or maybe they used mind-control beams to implant false memories, so people only think they’ve been complaining about Reid for years.
Honestly, I am not sure who to believe here. On the one side we have weak-ass excuses and an apparent history of controversy and/or shit-stirring. On the other, we have a black woman with opinions and visibility. Some assholes out there (some of whom do indeed have tech skills) don’t need any other reason.
Then again, “I never wrote that” is miles away from “I have never had those kinds of opinions”. It’s actually possible for both sides of this to be true: even if it turns out those posts aren’t by her, it doesn’t put her in the clear.
If we have to live in a fictional universe, does it have to be the one just before we get to The Diamond Age?
Okay, you’ve got me - now how do you prevent the inevitable “BUT WHAT IF THEM THAR DIGITAL FERENSIKS IS ALSO MADE UP BAH THEM THAR HACKERS?” line of thinking?
There’s no way to perfectly cover up digital signatures, the best hackers can do is hide where the hack originated from.
That was my thinking. The idea that someone would want to put up fake posts to make Joy Reid look bad is not just plausible, it’s almost certain. The likelihood that a someone who would want to do that would intersect with someone who is able to do that and I get the sense this is very implausible.
Yeah, there is a huge twitter thread (42 tweets) linking to anti-gay blog posts of one sort of another - using “gay” as an insult, accusing people of being gay, criticizing the left for accepting gay marriage, and many others. Reid has apologized for her previous posts. Since Reid has already apologized for the posts that were real, I’d like to know which ones were fake.
Charles Darwin called he said try www.genome.gov and spot the gay gene
I’m not so sure the change is nearly enough to count as an improvement. Some people will give her the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people…most, probably…won’t. Meanwhile, she’s just upped the stakes to a point where it could mean her job. She’s not the US president. She’s a mid-ranked news personality on a mid-ranked news network. So all she’s really done is raise the stakes. By owning up to the comments, she could have put the whole controversy to bed. All she’d have to do is say something like, “I’ve grown up a lot since I made those foolish remarks. That person is not who I am now”.
Instead, she has now put herself in a position of undermining the one asset any legitimate journalist must have: a dedication to finding and publishing facts. As a career journalist, she could survive being a reformed bigot. I don’t think she can survive being a liar.
A phrase that has strangely come to mean, “She will not be held to as low a standard as the US president.”
(Not that you are wrong, you are very right)
Thank you very much for your comment. Your observation about how even a mediocre journalist is held to a higher standard than the current President of the United States is right on the money.
And that is a sad thing indeed.
ITYM “legit”.
It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised. As for HR…
My friend (and myself as well) have zero expectations from HR, particularly in a larger organization.
And you bring up a point about cultural groups.
IT has always been and to this day pretty much is a place with mostly white men. It’s changing for the better, but still.
I used to work with a guy and you could check your calendar with him at the smoking table when it was close to February. Just like clockwork, he’d pipe up “when’s white history month?” - un-ironically.
“I’ve not been exempt from being dumb or cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for,” Reid said. “I own that. I get it. And for that I am truly, truly sorry.”
Well, at least she recognizes the disconnect and has apologized.
Did you tell him “from the start of March until the end of January” unironically?
Something along those lines, yea.
They’re like the War On Christmas people. Every day for two months you can’t leave the house without being reminded it’s the season, but if someone says “Happy Holidays” to them at the Ralph’s, they get apoplectic.
